


Unravel me

by pcysarcasm



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Hospital!AU, mute baekhyun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 18:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14920926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pcysarcasm/pseuds/pcysarcasm
Summary: Baekhyun, lost and depressed, has gone mute. Now, trapped in a mental hospital, he doesn't let anyone touch himself and spends most of his days in bed. Little does he know his life is about to change.—a story about love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark.





	Unravel me

"He's awake."

There’s a loud swishing sound, then the brisk click of curtain rights meeting. Two voices murmuring. Baekhyun presses his eyes tightly together.

"He hasn't eaten in two days."

A brief silence follows, during which he slowly becomes aware of different layers of sound - voices, muffled by distance, a car passing by the window.

"She should be here soon. That poor woman."

His mouth is so dry. Baekhyun closes his lips and swallows painfully. He doesn’t want to ask for some water, he has sworn himself to never ask them for something. He opens his eyes a little and peaks at the nurses.

"If I had a son like that- I wouldn't know what to do,” one of the nurses mutters and he closes his eyes again.

The pain in his head has become a thumping, rushing sound, building in volume and intensity. He’s mad, mad at them, at the world, at himself. He lets out a silent breath.

"Are you awake, dear? You have a visitor."

Baekhyun doesn’t move. There’s a dark shape near his feet and he sees it move, accompanied by the swishing. And then there’s a hand on his wrist.

"You can sit with him if you like. You can talk to him, he'll be able to hear you."

There’s a brief silence.

"Is everything okay with him?" a high voice asks.

"Today must be a bad day,” the nurse reassures. “Don't worry, physically he's perfectly healthy."

"I heard he... he tried to hurt himself again."

"There'll be some scarring, I'm afraid. Especially on the arm. But it's nothing to worry about."

A brief silence follows.

"Baekhyun? Baek, honey? Can you hear me?" The voice is tentative, perhaps a little embarrassed, even.

He wonders if they will let him go outside today. Maybe if he behaves well. If he’s nice.

"Baek, dear, it's me,” the woman says, a bit louder now.

He remains still, his head pressed into his pillow. There’s some murmuring that he can’t make out.

"I thought he might feel better."

"Therapy is always a long process." The sound of shuffled papers. "He's very young. The healing process is unpredictable and patients are affected quite differently. There’s nothing we can do, we'll just have to wait."

They’re talking as if he isn't laying here and listening to every word they’re saying. He feels a pat of a hand on a back. He flinches back. No one’s allowed to touch him.

He hears footsteps, low voices. Then the realization hits him. His mother has left and he’s alone once more. Baekhyun feels sorry for a moment, sorry for being a failure and a disappointment for his family but most of all sorry for contributing to the suffering of his mother's heart.

It’s been almost two years now that he’s in the hospital. Time has become fragmented, arriving and departing in clumps of hours. Almost two years and he still feels the same- or rather, is still the same.

Dr. Kim claims this is mainly due to his resistance to the prescribed psychotherapy and his growing hatred for psychiatric hospitals. In therapy, Baekhyun has been doing a great deal of thinking, but not saying much. He still refuses to follow instructions by doctors. None of them can answer his questions anyway. Truly, all these doctors have no use whatever.

Why should he pay attention to Dr. Kim? Or his mother? Or anyone? He’s a mote. He’s dust. He’s dust motes circulating through a shaft of sunlight. He’s nothing to them and they’re nothing to him.

He turns on his back, eyes still closed. He feels a surge of loneliness tinged with sorrow. Yesterday had been rough. The days before that too. Most of the time everything is just numb but there are days when everything gets too much. When the emotions overcome him and he has to feel everything at once, his brain inevitably shutting down.

Dr. Kim says it’s nothing to be worried about though, it means recovery. And Baekhyun never talks back. Because Baekhyun has stopped talking altogether. Not because there isn’t a lot to say, he just never knows where to start.

In his head he asks questions he can’t answer and understand; why the world is how it is, why there is so much pain when there doesn’t have to be, and why he feels so empty and lost.

None of these thoughts ever pass his lips. Absolutely nothing fits emptiness like silence, so he’s mute.

After a few minutes of trying to get back to sleep, he gives up and opens his eyes. While staring at the white wall he feels some kind of kneading in his belly pushing up his throat.

He’s so sick of it all.

Imagining his home makes him ache with loneliness. His room in the hospital is empty, cold and sterile and the days spent in them seem to be endless. There are no photographs on the walls, not even a simple a watercolor,- no, nothing. His room is bare, brutally impersonal. There's a TV in the middle of the room and a TV in front of it, a modern kitchen isle and a bathroom.

The thought of his own room and his failure to personalize it or allow himself to turn it into any kind of a home makes Baekhyun feel leaden and desperately sad. If he’s going to cry, now is the time to do it. But no tears come. He’s too numb and too tired to cry. The only thing he feels is a deeply rooted desire to be somewhere else.

On days like this, when the streets below are filled with couples holding hands, and laughing people spilling out of their homes, already planning meals, nights out, dates, something aches inside him; something primal telling him that he’s in the wrong place, that he’s missing something.

These are the moments when he feels most left behind.

He presses his eyes together and forces himself to fall asleep. Time flies past him. It’s Tuesday breakfast. Now it’s Wednesday lunchtime. He has slept for eighteen hours - this is said with some disapproval as if there’s an implied rudeness in being absent for so long. And then it’s Friday.

On most evenings he watches television. Sometimes he reads, draws a bit in his notebook or simply lays in bed, staring out of the window. His mother pays for private care so he can have almost anything he desires but there’s just nothing he wants in particular. The hospital itself, even though its sterile and unwelcoming, has barely any rules. The patients relatives pay huge sums to make sure that even such things as taking drugs is possible - it's just a matter of choice. Baekhyun knows of patients that excessively drink, and those who take harder stuff. It's as if their families are just happy with them being far away from home, locked away. They don't really care about their health or happiness as long as it happens here. 

His mother comes to visit him once a week, bringing flowers and sometimes chocolate that moulders beside his bed. She also brings photographs, in case he opens his eyes, and music, in case he would like to listen.

Baekhyun knows, at some deep level, that she must be the loving and caring mother that everyone says she is, and that he loves her, but it’s perplexing to feel nothing when everyone so obviously expects a different reaction.

Sometimes, when he concentrates enough on what he remembers of her, he can imagine what their life together could have looked like. He can imagine a cold house, pearl earrings and perfect family pictures. And he can imagine her coming home from work, and not wanting to talk at all, not wanting to be touched, making their supper, which she herself never ate, and then going to her room while Baekhyun ate alone.

And he can imagine her listening to old records she has had since junior high, her eyes open and her hands in a praying shape beneath her cheek, her long hair spread out behind her on the pillow and the needle of the phonograph pulsing on the spiraling track of a record album in the background. And he can imagine himself standing there, in the doorway, watching her and earning for some affection, playing some sort of game— trying to blink when she blinks, to set his mouth in the same shape as her mouth, to be close to her in some way. 

 

* * *

 

On one Monday morning, grey light is leaking through the curtains when loud knocking noises rise Baekhyun. He can hear Seung Wan's voice, calling him to wake up.

"Up, up! It's going to be a big day!"

Baekhyun has disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her. He knows the reason. Her forced positivity and her warm, big smiles and general clean-mindedness which she manages to carry about with her leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

Mrs. Wan changes his bed sheets, checks his medication. He tries to wiggle himself out of bed while ignoring her chattering. His eyes are gritty with tiredness, the rest of him just hollowed out.

For a moment, he imagines what it must be like inside that woman's head. What dreams come to her at night? He can’t think of anything.

She makes sure that he changes his clothes - a slightly worn out sweater and boxers against a white shirt and pajama pants - and places a cup of water in his hand. He tips the pills into his mouth, swallows obediently.

Mrs. Wan seems to be satisfied with that and picks up his used, dirty clothes before hurrying out of the room.

The morning is too bright, the walls glowing, the almost phosphorescent light bouncing off the white surfaces and Baekhyun sits back on his bed, squeezing his eyes together, slowly becoming aware of the other person in his room.

He looks over to the other side of the wall, to the bed that has been unused for the past two years, and for a moment the world melts. Flutters. Another universe that breathes.

A figure sits awkwardly on the edge of the bed. A vase of beautifully arranged flowers sits on the small table next to it. The air is scented with their perfume. Baekhyun wonders briefly if they were sent by the intruders family or are a gift from Mrs. Wan.

“Hey.”

Baekhyun flinches.

„I’m sorry.” The stranger holds up his big hands. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.“

Baekhyun quickly shakes his head. He feels slighted, and a little foolish, and this makes him stiff and awkward.

  
„It’s really nice to meet you,” the stranger says, with a nervous, earnest enthusiasm, as if Baekhyun were someone he has heard of, someone famous. Then the boy pulls a brown paper bag from his sweater pocket, opens it and holds it out.

“Do you like cookies?” he asks.

Baekhyun feels a slow squeeze of grief. He doesn’t know what it means. He feels humiliated without being able to say why. He turns a little to block the stranger's view on his face.

"You don't wanna say anything?" the boy asks, a bit confused. A quick nod is given shortly after as if remembering something. "So, you don't talk, huh?"

Baekhyun shrugs. It can’t possibly matter. He keeps his back turned from the stranger. It’s safer, though, as he well knows, even a back can be revealing.

The stranger’s relaxed mood evaporates and something strange takes its place. They sit there in an increasingly uncomfortable silence, Baekhyun looking down on his hands and the boy gazing stupidly at the wall.

After a few seconds, Baekhyun can’t help it any longer but risk a glance.

The boy is glowing. He’s tall, skinny, with huge eyes and two big ears sticking out of his red hair.

Baekhyun’s breath gets caught at the back of his throat. Truly, the stranger is handsomer than anyone he has ever met. Once this thought has popped into his head, denial roars through him, sharp and cutting, but he can’t dislodge it. He wants to look away but can’t.

Heavy strands of red hair are falling into the boys face. The color brings out the flecks of gold in his brown eyes and despite Baekhyun's disgust for anything related to the hospital - especially the other patients - he can’t help but think how attractive it makes the redhead look.

The boy returns his gaze and smiles. He has the kindest eyes. "Sorry for not introducing myself. I’m Chanyeol.”

Baekhyun gives a small nod. He feels a little unbalanced, as if the excess of the boy’s beauty, his style, has made him aware of its lack in himself.

The redhead’s eyes start to scan Baekhyun’s face with such intensity – he seems to be having an internal conversation to which no one else could be privy. He opens a small paper bag, takes two cookies in his hands, leans over and holds one out for him.

"Don't you wanna try? They are absolutely delicious, I promise," he says, keeping his big, round eyes on Baekhyun, perhaps waiting for some kind of reaction.

Baekhyun lets out a long, shaky breath, disguised as a sigh, and nods. He takes the cookie out of Chanyeol's hand and stares at it. It feels sitting there, with a stranger in his room, eating cookies. Had anyone told him that a week ago, Baekhyun had laughed. 

The redhead bites into his own cookie and smiles. "Tastes like home. My mom makes them, she's the best.”

Baekhyun raises his eyebrows a fraction but doesn’t say anything but cannot conceal the moan that escapes him when he tastes the sweet aroma of the chocolate cookie.

Chanyeol smirks at that. “See, told you so. Nothing is comparable to those homemade treasures.”

They both finish their cookies in silence and as the silence lengthens, Baekhyun begins to feel the disapproval, the veiled question within the boys stare and it makes him angry.

How dare this boy - this stranger - invade his home and then has the audacity to judge him for not being polite enough. Baekhyun imagines what the boy must think of him, after all, he’s the lunatic who never talks, the one who won’t let other people touch him.

What did the boy expect? Getting a talkative, healthy and happy roommate? Someone who would entertain him and become his best friend?

Baekhyun's two years of silence have taught him to speak with his sharp, blue eyes and so he pours all his emotions into them. Just as he’s absolutely sure that the boy has understood his anger, he stands up and runs out of the room, down the hallway.

Slam. The door shut.

 

* * *

 

That night Baekhyun can’t fall asleep. Over the past years, he has adapted to the loneliness that his room used to provide and having another human being so close to where he’s supposed to sleep makes it hard for him to relax.

Even from where he is, Baekhyun can hear Chanyeol's breathing clearly and he can imagine him lying there in the darkness; his pale face, the blue shadows under his eyes, furrowed eyebrows and the faint sprinkling of freckles.

He gazes out of the window, down at the city spread beneath. The hospital is set on a mountain that is more a hill of some sorts and the view that presents itself is truly beautiful, letting Baekhyun look over the entire city.

He stretches, feeling the tightness in his shoulders, the tension in his neck. And, somewhere underneath, the nagging sense that he’s missing something; secrets that float just out of sight.

He wonders if the boy hates him. Baekhyun would have found it hard not to if he were him. Now, thinking back to what happened that morning, he regrets his rapid exit. With hindsight, it all seems a bit overly emotional and weird, running away from him like that.

Baekhyun resolves that tomorrow he will react very calmly, perhaps say hello with an enigmatic, non-depressed-person smile.

Or maybe not.

After the birds start singing, his thoughts slow, and still, and he falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

Baekhyun doesn’t stand up for almost two weeks after Chanyeol officially becomes his roommate. He just lays in his bed, like someone dead. Then for ages, he drifts around, there but not quite there, as if he’s a hole in a room.

The nurse Mrs. Wan looks after him, feeding him up, getting him dressed and washing him when needed.

The strong smell of freshly made tea wakes him up one Sunday morning. It takes him several seconds to consider why this odd smell mixed with smoke is filtering through his room.

Mrs. Wan knows he isn’t an early bird and won’t leave bed before 11 am and the other nurses never dare to enter his room. When the realization hits him, he pushes himself upright, rubbing at his face and his hair.

Chanyeol sits on his bed, smoking, using Baekhyun's favorite mug as an ashtray. He seems astonishingly awake. The clock says 6:32 a.m. The television is on and two teacups are standing on Chanyeol's sideboard.

"Good Morning. That one on the right’s yours," the boy says, turning towards Baekhyun and pointing at one of the teacups. "It's peppermint, not sure if you like it."

His face has something peaceful about it, something Baekhyun can’t describe with words. The scowl and the bright, overeager smile have stilled into something soft and beautiful and the messy red curls make him appear younger, sweeter.

Maddening as his behavior is, Baekhyun can’t be angry.

He slowly gets up and tries to remember how to move his feet. It requires several more leaps of concentration than it used to but he manages to make his way over to Chanyeol's bed, head down, face partly covered by his fringe, eyes darted to the ground.

Chanyeol pats the empty space next to him and Baekhyun gladly accepts the invitation, sits down as rigid as a starched collar and takes a sip of the warm tea.

It has been ages since the last time he had been up this early, especially accompanied by someone else (who wasn't part of the hospital staff) and the whole situation feels alien to him. He doesn’t know how to behave and wonders what other - normal - people would do on such an occasion.

Perhaps Chanyeol detects some of this internal struggle because he waits until Baekhyun takes his third sip of tea, then says, "So, peppermint- your thing or not?"

Baekhyun gives a light shrug and swallows. His knuckles are white where his hands are pressed against the cup.

"Noted. I prefer coffee but they won't let me have it," Chanyeol sighs, placing his cup back on the table. He seems to be nervous, and just as uncomfortable as Baekhyun.

"They say it holds the potential to make me addicted and that I have to use healthy coping mechanisms instead of turning to drugs,” he rambles on.

When he catches the flash of surprise on Baekhyun face, barely suppressed, he rolls his eyes. "No one else would call my delicious coffee a drug but Mrs. Hwang."

He tilts his head towards Baekhyun, his voice low. "I swear she is the worst out of them all. If they let her she would even forbid sugar.”

Baekhyun can feel the boy's eyes running over his cheeks, collarbones, and neck. Suddenly the room is a few degrees warmer and Baekhyun quickly darts his eyes to the TV and takes another sip of tea.

He has no will to speak but is also afraid to get up again. Yet just to sit and let Chanyeol stare at him seems to make him complicit in something. He takes a small breath and looks up again.

Chanyeol is still watching him. "You are pale. Are you ill?“ he asks.

Reluctantly, Baekhyun raises his eyebrows. Chanyeol doesn’t seem to expect a response.

"You should eat more, you know? You aren’t dieting, are you?” he asks, giving a questioning look.

„Are you hungry?" He gestures towards a small tray of bread and cheese. “I made some toast too.”

Baekhyun shakes his head. He has had no appetite all day. Trying to make the best out of the situation, he takes his knees underneath his chin, reaches out the remote control and starts flicking through the channels.

From this position on the sofa, he can hear the soft-shoe shuffle of the nurses moving up and down the corridors and the occasional murmur of conversation between doctor and nurse.

"Sweet," Chanyeol murmurs, as a picture of a girl comes on the television.

Baekhyun recognizes her. The same picture had been shown the night before and in the newspaper that morning, the girl's board face, long blond hair tucked behind her ears.

She was probably dead.

"Only sixteen," Chanyeol sighs, leaning back. "Isn't it insane? You can walk outside your house one day and suddenly disappear, just like that. Murdered."

There’s a long silence.

"My mom always used to tell me that, you know. Life can be over in a second, might as well enjoy it." A deep chuckle escapes the boy's throat.

"Who cares, we’re all gonna die. Eat that cake. Buy that expensive computer game. You don't owe the world shit."

Baekhyun snorts.

"What?" the redhead asks.

Baekhyun gives him a look.

"Yeah. Right. I am one to talk, being locked away in a psychiatric hospital," Chanyeol retorts, rolling his eyes. 

Chanyeol switches the channel and starts rambling about something else. Baekhyun barley listens, the whole situation overwhelming and scaring him at the same time.

But after a while, Baekhyun finds himself relaxing. It’s nice to feel something other than anxiety, or mute fury, the twin emotions that seem to make up so much of his daily life.

He leans back in his seat, listening to Chanyeol’s breathing and finds himself even enjoying Chanyeol's chuckles and short comments ("It's so nice of them to give the camera to Steady Eddie, the recovering addict from the rehab clinic next door").

He also finds himself sneaking glances at Chanyeol, at the way his hands hold his cup, at his unexpected smiles, which cause soft lines to span out from the corner of each eye as if they are drawn with fine-point precision.

Chanyeol tells him about his parents: his father a successful businessman, his mother a nightclub singer, their whole pride being Chanyeol’s sister, Yoora.

He doesn’t mention a girlfriend but says that his mother worries about the ongoing lack of a feminine influence in his life.

“She comes and checks on me once a month and takes me back to Seoul so she and my sister can annoy me.” He rests his elbows on his knees. “I always moan about going, but I secretly love it.“

When he tells Baekhyun about Yoora’s perplexing moods and her erratic behaviour, Baekhyun nods, as if this were all to be expected.

They sit there for a while, watching TV until it’s lunchtime and Chanyeol has therapy. After the boy has left and Baekhyun is alone, his room feels empty and lifeless.

Baekhyun stands up and opens his door, not being able to bare any more second inside that tiny room. He starts to move along the hallway, walking, sliding, one hand on the wall.

The walls are cold, warty plaster, painted smooth, and Baekhyun runs his hands across them as if they are braille, supporting himself as he walks. Doors line up. The rooms inside all identical.

Not quite a prison, not quite a hospital. A home, they call it. His parents have put him in a home. His father had once said that they put an old lady next door who had lost her mind when she got old in such a home, and now Baekhyun himself is in such a place.

Being watched over. Taken care of.

He thinks about how he can’t lock the door in his room. How long months stretch in front of him with nothing to do but wait, months upon months tunneled in front of him.

It’s a deathly place. Silent. Cold.

He seems to be so far from everything. From normality. From light. From where he feels safe.

He starts to think about things that he will never tell people, ugly memories that make him wince when they enter his mind. Every muscle in his body starts to scream at him and he collapses against the wall.

 

* * *

 

Later that evening, Mrs. Wan moves slowly down the ward, pushing a trolly on which sit neat rows of paper cups containing brightly colored pills.

Baekhyun has done positively nothing all day. It’s his normal routine, for hours he sits and looks through the windows at the sky, the clouds, the trees and then for hours he sleeps.

Mrs. Wan places a cup of water in his hand. Her smile stays on her lips for just a nanosecond, then falls away.

"Not going to make a fuss, are we?"

Baekhyun, sitting on his bed, lifts his head tips the pills into his mouth, swallowing as obedient as he always does.

_Of course not._

 

* * *

 

A chill brings him to the surface, the blanket is found lacking and he shivers.

It’s at this point that he becomes aware of the pain. His body is aching and his head feels dull and relentless. He wraps his arms around himself, trying to block out the encroaching grief.

A loud sob cuts through the silence.

The dark is oppressive, unrelieved by any neighbouring buildings or sodium light. He pushes his head up against his pillow and watches the soothing movements of the ward walking up and down the hallway.

Then there is it again, a quiet whimper.

For a moment, he is scared, unable to move. He lays there in the darkness, listening to quiet sobs, his heart beat in his throat.

It takes him a while to realize that Chanyeol isn’t awake.

He slides off the bed soundlessly. He’s still shivering, cold to the bones, but that doesn’t concern him.

Chanyeol's breath emerges in small, cloudy bursts, his face twitching with nightmares. Carefully, Baekhyun sits next to him and feels the lump swell in his throat. His legs stop shaking. He never gets to see people while they sleep, not like this.

He studies the slight bump on the bridge of Chanyeol’s nose, the variation in the shade of the stubble that shadows his chin, the slight curl at the end of his dark, long eyelashes.

In his mind, he runs over things the boy had told him, putting the words through a new filter, one that pitches him as a cheerful and honest roommate, an affectionate and caring brother, and he wants to laugh with the idiocy of it all and cringe at his prejudices.

He watches the rise and fall of Chanyeol's chest, the stir and rest of him. The redhead's mouth is slightly open, and he’s making indistinguishable sounds of anguish.

Baekhyun can’t tear his eyes from him. He feels as if he’s watching something he’s not supposed to see, something beyond him, something he can’t have for himself.

Slowly - as if he could burn himself - he raises one of his hands and wipes away some of the salivae on Chanyeol's face. Then he soothingly rubs his other hand over the boy's arms, down his back. It seems to calm the boy, and Baekhyun doesn’t stop, sitting there until he can watch the sun’s gentle rise.

 

* * *

 

The nurses are busy working late, as they are most nights, and the communal rooms are silent except for the click of Baekhyun’s heels on the polished wood floor. Stopping in front of the piano, Baekhyun lets out a shaking breath, laying one hand on the yellow keys.

Even though he has used the piano before he’s anxious. He looks around to make sure he’s alone before he sits down. His shoulders tighten up, the way they invariably do before playing.

The hospital is clean and shiny. Everything is white; the walls, sheets, nurse's uniforms, the beds and medical instruments. Everyone here speaks in polite, calm voices. But the communal rooms offer a place for the patients to hang out, to drink, to talk, to listen to music or read.

Baekhyun presses on a key. His fingers stop shaking, and he breathes in the familiar smell of the hospital.

He begins playing a simple melody that eventually morphs into a complex and fast-paced song. He titles his face up toward the ceiling, his shoulders shifting back, opening his chest to draw in a breath. Trickles of sweat run down his neck and he feels exhausted, but at the same time, very much alive, in a state of half consciousness.

Something rises in his chest, a familiar sensation and the tears come quickly, wetting his reddened cheeks. He listens to the melody with pleasure, so lost in the music that it takes him several minutes to notice the other person in the room.

Startled, he stops playing.

“That was beautiful,” Chanyeol breathes out.

Baekhyun wants to respond to this, to glare at this idiot and let him know he doesn’t care about his opinion, but he’s is afraid that his voice will come out slurred, like a drunk’s. He can feel his face growing red. His eyes are beginning to leak tears, blurring his sight.

Quickly, before he can embarrass himself any further, Baekhyun jumps up and runs for the exit.

When Chanyeol comes back into their room, no one mentions it. But Baekhyun notices the mysterious smile that is plastered or the redheads face and doesn’t know what to make of it.

 

* * *

 

On Friday, Chanyeol’s parents come to visit. His mom looks a bit tired, worn out from life. Baekhyun doesn’t dare to ask questions. Chanyeol goes out with her and comes back with two fully stuffed bags in his hands.

Baekhyun is exactly where one would expect to find him: stretched out in front of the television.

“I’ve got an idea,” Chanyeol blasts out, letting himself in. “This room’s a bit tired. I thought we could get rid of this boring white.”

Baekhyun pretends to be busy making himself a drink, watching out of the corner of his eye, then walking over and examining the paint cans.

“I was told green is the in thing. I’ll take it back if you think it won’t work," Chanyeol says. The distress on his face, the insecurity blatantly obvious. Chanyeol is so transparent, every emotion registering on his face as if he has never known what he should conceal.

Baekhyun looks at the cans and then gives a light shrug.

Chanyeol starts to busy himself with unwrapping the paintbrushes and rollers before changing into an old shirt and some shorts. Baekhyun watches him as he hauls a chair off to one side and lays some dust sheets along the wall.

“I originally wanted to go with a nice, bright red since it’s my favourite color but the woman wouldn’t let me," the redhead says.

Baekhyun doesn’t say anything, but Chanyeol has his attention. He cracks open a paint tin and begins to mix it.

“Too bright, she said. Would make us aggressive or something," Chanyeol adds.

Baekhyun gives another shrug and comes up beside Chanyeol. He picks up a brush. He says nothing at first, but after a while, he starts to lose himself in the repetitive nature of the task.

He’s careful, too, adjusting the sheet so that he doesn’t spill paint on the floor, wiping his brush on the edge of the pot. They don’t talk, except for mumbled questions: Can you pass me the other brush? Will that still show through on the second coat?

It takes them just half an hour to do the first wall.

“So what do you think?” Chanyeol says, admiring their work. “Think we can do another?”

He moves a dust sheet and starts on the next wall. Earlier, he had put on some band Baekhyun has never heard of, light-hearted and agreeable and Baekhyun finds himself encouraged by it, the soundtrack making the whole process seemingly easier.

He starts to paint again, ignoring the ache in his shoulder, the urge to yawn.

“We should hang up some pictures. I’ve got this big poster of Deadpool on my wall at home. Mom could bring it and we can put it here if you want.”

Baekhyun gives a small nod. He’s working faster now, speeding across the wall, carefully cutting in around the large window.

“So I was thinking,” Chanyeol says, “We should find a way to communicate with each other. Like, since we are roommates and all. Are you into writing stuff down?”

Baekhyun says nothing. He crouches down, apparently absorbed in carefully coating the wall to the skirting-board.

“I guess that means no.”

Chanyeol steps down from the box he was using to stand on and wipes his brush on the edge of the tin. “You probably think I’m an idiot or something but I won’t take it personally.”

Finally, Baekhyun stands up. They stare at each other. And suddenly, unexpectedly, Baekhyun feels something warm grow in his chest. He's not sure yet if Chanyeol is an idiot or not, but he's agreeable. 

Chanyeol puts the lid on the paint. “Let’s have a break. You’re probably just as tired as I am.”

Baekhyun takes a quick, cold shower. Meanwhile, Chanyeol changes in a more comfortable outfit- a grey shirt and blue shorts.

After half an hour they finally sit on the little sofa in front of the TV and eat some toast. Chanyeol has made Baekhyun a cup of tea and they sit in silence for a bit, watching the latest episode of One Piece.

It’s nice and comfortable and Baekhyun thinks that he can maybe grow used to having a roommate.

When Baekhyun goes to bed, Chanyeol seems to be struggling to fall asleep. He searches through one of his unopened boxes until he finds a jar of congealing paintbrushes.

In the morning, when Baekhyun rises he find his place to be a complete mess. There are brushes scattered around, a ladder, a plate full of half-finished food. And everywhere the pervasive smell of turpentine, mixed with oil paint and echoes of cigarette smoke.

And there, in the centre of it all, walking slowly backwards and forwards with a brush in his hand and color in his hair and on his face, lost in thought - Chanyeol. He seems bigger, his body clearly visible through the fine fabric of his shirt.

Baekhyun stares at him in astonishment. And then, perhaps compelled by the intensity of his gaze, Chanyeol looks up and sees him.

“Good morning!” He smiles. “I hope you slept well. I’ve made some toast and coffee. Take some if you like and don’t mind me.”

As he goes back to painting, Baekhyun watches him. He takes in the boyish features, the way Chanyeol mumbles to himself while mixing colours.

Baekhyun recalls how the boy sings along with the radio music, paints when he likes, speaks to whom he wants and says what he thinks. He wants to live as Chanyeol does, joyfully, trying to make the best out of every moment.

And then it’s dark. Baekhyun has done nothing all day but laying in bed, sleeping and watching his roommate painting the walls.

Chanyeol stops to clean his brushes and gazes around him as if he’s only just noticing that it’s night.

“Are you cold?” he asks.

Baekhyun shakes his head, but Chanyeol walks over to his dresser, pulling from it a dark red scarf, which he carefully places around Baekhyun’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry for making noises and keeping you up. You should go to bed.” His eyes are tired and strained now.

Baekhyun does as told and tries to fall asleep even though he finds it incredibly hard not to watch Chanyeol.

It takes all night and the next 4 days for satisfaction inking itself on the redhead’s face and after seeing the walls being transformed into Chanyeol’s own art project; a wild variation of colors and patterns, Baekhyun feels it mirror his own.

 

* * *

 

Forty-two pills in a bottle. Pills to help Baekhyun sleep. Perfectly legitimate, perfectly understandable, given his history of depression and self-harm.

Mr. Kim had been happy to give them to him. In fact, he had paid little attention, so content with being approached by someone to whose problems he knew a simple solution. He had handed Baekhyun the prescription without a moment’s hesitation, then turned back to his computer to arrange things for his next patient.

Baekhyun gazes at the warnings it contains. Sleeping pills. Takers of life, in the wrong circumstances. As he holds them, he feels a strange, hollow thrill.

As he’s about to swallow the whole bottle the bathroom door suddenly opens. Chanyeol gets a hold of his arm, easily catches the bottle and empties it in the toilet, flushes it all down.

Baekhyun’s breath comes in deep jags, tears streaming down his face. He shakes his head at Chanyeol, his chest so tight he could barely breathe. He gulps air, and his lungs inflate with a painful gasp.

Before Baekhyun does much more than crying, Chanyeol already grabs him by the shoulders.

“It’s all right,” he says, his eyes kind. “It’s all right.“

Seconds later, Baekhyun feels his arm surrounding him.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Chanyeol mumbles into his ear. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I understand and it’s okay.”

He holds him then. Chanyeol holds him without saying anything and Baekhyun falls apart. And Chanyeol never moves. He just stands there, his arms locked around Baekhyun. Tight enough to comfort. Loose enough to reassure him of his freedom.

“Boys?”

Mrs. Wan stands in the bathroom door. She must have heard noises or seen the light. She looks from Baekhyun to Chanyeol and back again, her hair still matted from sleep.

Her presence brings Baekhyun back from the brink. He pulls away from Chanyeol and wipes his eyes.

“Why are you crying?” Mrs. Wan looks confused for a split second, then almost angry. A smile of irony and sorrow flits and fades from her face. “Mr. Byun doesn’t like to be touched, Chanyeol. I thought the rules were clear.”

“But-”

Her voice cuts across the room, quiet and firm: ”I will report this to Mr. Kim. It’s way past midnight, it’s time to sleep. Lights out.”

 

* * *

 

A few days later, Baekhyun tries himself at making dinner. It’s not much, just plain eggs with some onions and peppers but Chanyeol seems to like it, and the way he’s devouring it makes Baekhyun feel a bit proud.

Feeling the day’s mood leach away from them, Chanyeol begins to talk.

“I didn’t think being here would be this nice, you know?”

He shoots Baekhyun a sideways look and a small, sad smile that somehow makes Baekhyun feel sadder than if Chanyeol hadn’t smiled at all.

“I was at a different hospital before but mom didn’t really like it. The nurses were a bit harsh, wouldn’t let her visit often either.” He shrugs. “I used to miss her a lot, back then, but not so much now. It’s kind of hard being around her, you see, with dad being dead and all.”

Baekhyun raises his eyebrows a fraction but doesn’t say anything.

“She used to be so different with Jungsik around. He always made her laugh, cheered her up. Mum got together with him while I was small. He was a musician. Very creative. He used to read stories and stuff and makeup songs about me, that kind of thing. I just …” He trails off.

Chanyeol reaches into his pocket, pulls out a packet of cigarettes and lits one. He inhales and lets out a long flute of smoke.

“Dad… He died like people do sometimes. My parents married young, mom got pregnant with Yora quickly. Mom needed someone, I guess. And Jungsik took care of us. The whole situation- ” He shrugs and inhales again. “It was hard for me, I guess. It doesn’t really matter.”

He studies his hands and Baekhyun studies him.

Suddenly, he feels crushingly sad for Chanyeol and has to look away before he makes himself sad, too. Sometimes it seems to him as if everyone’s just wading around in grief, reluctant to admit to others how far they’re drowning.

Baekhyun takes a breath, trying to quell the sudden buzzing in his ears. He lifts a hand to his face, brushing away a strand of blonde hair, his long, delicate fingers trembling.

The silence that follows is as hard and brittle as glass. Baekhyun stares at the table. The eggs on his plate look delicious but he’s not in the mood to eat anymore. He waits until he’s sure he can breathe normally.

Chanyeol looks at him as if he’s trying to work something out.

“Are you very annoyed by me right now? I can stop talking, go to bed or something if you like," he says.

Reluctantly, Baekhyun shakes his head. He can’t tell Chanyeol that he isn’t sad when he’s with him.

He thinks of how he likes having the redheads food in his fridge, how he glances at the time all twenty times a day waiting for him to come back from therapy, how he can’t stop smiling when he thinks of the boy and then has to force himself to think very hard about floor polish to stop himself glowing.

Slow down, says a warning voice in Baekhyun’s head. Don’t get too close.

Chanyeol blows a smoke ring up into the sky, watching as it swells, wavers and evaporates.

“So, did you grew up without a dad?” Chanyeol asks and blushes, perhaps conscious that his question might be considered intrusive.

Again, Baekhyun shakes his head, his hands now playing around with the egg on his plate.

“And you don’t love him.”

Something cold and hard settles in Baekhyun’s stomach. He keeps his face neutral and nods.

Chanyeol’s jaw tightens. He takes a moment before he continues to speak.

“Basically, one-day Jungsik was my dad – I mean, I called him like that right up until the day he left – and the next he wasn’t.”

Chanyeol looks sideways at Baekhyun. His eyes have filled with tears.

“He used to take me to primary school and sports and everything, taught me how to play the guitar even – and then Mom just decides she’s had enough of him, and I get home and he’s just … gone. Just like that. And I’m not allowed to see him and I’m not even allowed to talk about him.”

Chanyeol wraps his arms around his knees and stares straight ahead. They sit there in silence for a few minutes, watching the traffic start to build below us as the sun slid further down the sky.

„I found him, you know.”

Baekhyun looks up, facing Chanyeol.

“Jungsik. When I was sixteen. I googled his name and called random people until I found him. Then I looked up his address and he lived about fifteen minutes’ walk from where we were. Strange isn’t it?’

Baekhyun leans a bit forward in his seat.

Chanyeol hesitates. “He was happy about it. So happy, he almost cried, actually. Said he’d missed me so much, and that it was awful being away from me. But he had hooked up with someone else and they had a baby. And when you turn up at someone’s house and they have a baby and, like, their own little new life, you realize you’re not part of his family anymore. You’re a leftover.”

He suddenly shakes his head. “Yes, well. Anyway, as I said, it doesn’t really matter.”

He stands up and walks over to the kitchen sink. He shakes his head once more, irritated with himself.

“You know the thing that really bugs me?” he asks.

Baekhyun waits.

“Mom sold our house a few months after I was sent here. My home and nobody ever even bothered to ask me," Chanyeol says and his voice cracks a little. “It’s like I have nothing to go back to.”

He wipes briskly at his face with the palm of his hand, as if embarrassed to be seen crying. He inhales his cigarette, then grounds it out on the sink and sniffs noisily.

Baekhyun knows he should say something but he’s lost for words, and there’s an enormous lump in his throat.

“Sorry," Chanyeol says and lifts his chin, pushes his red hair back from his face and turns around. His face is a bit puffy, but he’s smiling.

“Sometimes I’m a bit of a crybaby, don’t take it to heart.”

Baekhyun tries to make his expression settled and neutral, to make his face the way the boy might want it to be. He feels for Chanyeol. Even though he cannot imagine how it must feel to loose a parent like that, it's the pain he can familiarize with. 

Chanyeol sighs. For a moment, his eyes cloud with concern, uncertainty. Sometimes I wonder…” he mumbles, and a dismissive wave of his hand follows before he leaves the kitchen.

Baekhyun smiles as soon as he’s alone. Has Chanyeol just opened up to him? Are they.. something like friends now? Is this conry? Clichéd? He isn’t sure. He had little to no sense of what daily, long-term friendship might be like. He has seen movies and television shows, he has read books, but that’s about it.

He knows what it feels like to fail, he knows how to disappoint and to be abandoned. He knows what it’s like to live alone, to sit in his silent room. He knows, from a few experiences, what a cold hug feels like, what it’s like to have a meal with his parents.

He knows how to make himself invisible, how to speak to no one, how to walk with his head down. But this doesn’t amount to much, he realizes.

He spends a lot of time thinking about it. He sits on the sofa in the living room, in front of the TV, writing down the names of everyone he has ever known on a piece of paper.

He makes up categories: acquaintances, relatives, potential friends, love interests. It’s almost like a game. What is a relationship between two people? he thinks. How is it accomplished?

He thinks about his various failures. And then he thinks about Chanyeol and in which category he should put him.

 

* * *

 

Slowly, Baekhyun starts to contend with accommodating the explosion of mess in his near-empty room - Chanyeol’s instruments, his notebook, his pens, those random drawings and pictures - and he begins to deal with the music that the redhead is blasting all day long. (Ranging from songs about a heartbreaking kind of love to ear-hurting anthems of hatred against all mankind.)

He learns how to adapt, masters the art of mentally rising above the noise and focusing on Chanyeol who nods his head to the beat and occasionally performs a drum roll in the air.

And after a few months, Baekhyun starts to quite enjoy having Chanyeol in his life, having someone to eat with, sit side by side with on the sofa, commenting on whatever they happen to be watching.

For all his posturing, Baekhyun can see the child in Chanyeol. It’s there in the excitements and sudden enthusiasms. It’s there in the sulks and the abrupt, innocent sleep. He reminds Baekhyun of his brother and his uncomplicated love for football.

Sometimes he watches the redhead laughing at something on TV, or simply gazing steadily out of the window lost in thought, and cannot help but appreciate those features – the precise angles of his nose, those cheekbones, the small mole on his nose – that he forgets to breathe. (At this point Chanyeol usually grumbles, “Stop staring at me like a weirdo, Baek. You’re freaking me out.”)

* * *

 

Whenever Baekhyun comes back from this daily therapy session, Chanyeol is still up, watching some comedy program on tv or playing around with his guitar.

It’s the same today and Baekhyun instantly has to smile when he sees the boy. This happens a lot lately- Baekhyun having to smile because of Chanyeol.

Chanyeol head snaps around. His eyes, Baekhyun sees, are red-rimmed. It might have been lack of sleep.

"Hey, Baekhyun.” Chanyeol smiles, warm and bright and gestures at him to come closer.

Baekhyun blinks a few times, his mind unfocused and cloudy. Yesterday had been bad, worse than bad if he’s honest with himself and now, new bandages are covering his wrists.

"I wanted to bake a cake," Chanyeol says, dragging on his cigarette and exhales, the smoke flying from his mouth. "But then I remembered that I really suck at baking- so I told Mom to buy these." He points at his lap.

„Here," he motions at Baekhyun to sit down, "would one of these cheer you up?"

There are tons of different cookies- peanut butter ones, crispy coconut ones, brown butter ones and many more.

Baekhyun sits down, silently starting to devour one by one. Chanyeol makes them some tea, then sites back on the bed and turns on his laptop.

Baekhyun scoots closer, curiously blinking at the screen. He thought electronic devices are forbidden.

"My mother left it with me for the weekend," Chanyeol explains, sensing his curiosity.

Baekhyun scoots closer once more, face almost touching the boy's muscular arms. He can smell Chanyeol. His gaze drifts towards the cigarette stick dangling carefully between Chanyeol’s fingertips, burning away and leaving embers and a thin veil of smoke in its wake.

Chanyeol noticing this quickly tosses the cig away, then points at the screen. He shows him a program that lets one change pictures, so for fun they make a few selfies and Baekhyun draws a big fat pimple on Chanyeol's face, transforms his nose into a dick and then does another where he gives Chanyeol a mustache and a pair of really big ears.

“Hey! I don't have ears like that," Chanyeol protests then and when they lock eyes, completely unexpectedly, Baekhyun finds he has started to laugh. For a second he’s unhaunted. Laughing harder and harder, they end up rolling around on the mattress, crying and clapping their hands.

When he has composed himself a little he looks at Chanyeol. Lying next to him, being this close, breathing the same air, feeling his eyes on his skin like soft touches, - it all makes Baekhyun's head spin. He feels out of control but calm at the same time.

It’s then when Chanyeol speaks. "Why don't you talk?"

His smile is sympathetic, his eyes concerned. Baekhyun's heart skips a beat and he starts to break out in cold sweat. Desperately he fights for control, everything around him a blur. He can feel himself falling again, spiraling into the dark place where he can’t choose for himself but only remember.

Now in the process of rediscovering his traumatic memories, he has trouble thinking. How did everything begin? How the hell did he get here? This is not the life that he had always wanted.

He hadn’t liked to be living as the dead, to walking around half-boy, half-ghost. He reenters the world in a trance-like state. He remembers. Remembers this atmosphere of horror, over the course of years. Gutted and destroyed. A little boy. Caught on a hook like a fish.

He hears a voice and looks up.

"Can’t tell me, huh?"

There he is. Chanyeol. Right by his side. Broad shoulders against his own. He’s not alone. He’s not 10 again. He’s safe. Baekhyun brings his hands up his head, burying his face in them. He has to keep his calm, has to bury everything, has to repress.

"I guess it must be something pretty bad or you wouldn’t be so shook up." Chanyeol's voice, when he speaks, holds the faintest hint of an apology.

Baekhyun says nothing. His head is still swimming. The air must have gotten stuck in his lungs until he got light headed.

A hand found his, softly dragging it back to the mattress. Chanyeol doesn’t let go then but instead holds on tightly, his huge knuckles atop of fragile, thin fingers, and Baekhyun takes comfort from it, more than he had guessed he might.

They lay there for some minutes, Baekhyun feeling the alien warmth of Chanyeol's skin being absorbed by his own hand.

Then Chanyeol's hold on his hand becomes tighter.

"I wish you would tell me," he whispers.

Baekhyun wants to. Has never wanted anything else more in his life than to tell him, but he can’t- will never allow himself. To speak with actual words, to vocalize his pain, is to make it real. And to make it real is to feel it and to feel it again is to hurt and he doesn’t want to hurt, not like that- not ever again.

Also, more than anything, Baekhyun is afraid. He knows he’s alone for a reason, that no one could possibly want to be around him, that he’s dirty; broken; needy; worthless; him. If Chanyeol knew who he really was he would leave him, hurt him, or worse- pity him.

The shame runs deep in his bones.

Baekhyun begins to whimper, on the verge of tears. Chanyeol slowly slides an arm around his waist, pulling him on top of his chest, resting his chin on Baekhyun's head.

“I don’t know what was – or is – going on with you, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol says carefully. “I just want you to know there is nothing so bad that you can’t tell me. And there is nothing you could do that would make me look down on you or pity you.”

It is then that the tears come and Baekhyun realises, in horror, that he can’t stop them. The sobs wrench his chest and shoulders and he can’t stop.

Chanyeol's left hand comes to rest on his back, the other starts to slowly comb through his smooth, blond locks of hair. Baekhyun’s sure that Chanyeol can feel his trembling beneath his fingers.

The boy starts humming, softly, a melody oddly familiar. After a while, Baekhyun's eyelids are getting too heavy now for his mind to keep running and he sinks into the safety of sleep.

 

* * *

 

When Baekhyun wakes up, it takes him a moment until he realizes where he is.

A lurch into waking. The peculiar dreamlike state that suffuses the small hours. Chanyeol is in his bed. The redhead's leg against his. A smile creeps across Baekhyun’s face.

He looks at the clock. Almost six in the morning.

Time settles into order, the world, reluctantly, into something that makes sense. Outside, the solitary pensioners; rich kids from families with prestige, glued to a television screen, too depressed even to try to get themselves up and the suicidal, the chronically ill, the unloved.

In here it is just him and Chanyeol in the dark and the warm bed and the sound of his breathing.

Slowly, memories of the previous day land, and there’s a silent, mental Oh. Right.

Still asleep, Chanyeol's head turns. His mouth, inches from Baekhyun’s. His breath, warm and sweet.

Baekhyun wants to tell him then. He wants to tell him that he doesn’t know what he feels. That he’s frightened. That he doesn’t want his happiness to be entirely dependent on somebody else’s, to be a hostage to fortunes he cannot control.

It has been years since he has had let someone touch him, let alone hug him and now he’s cuddling with a stranger, feeling unbelievable safe and content.

He had felt so perfectly protected he had fallen asleep in his arms. And even now, Baekhyun has to admit, he still feels utterly at peace. Chanyeol's muscles, his hard chest, the soft belly and his faint breaths,- it’s wonderful.

For a while, he lays there in silence, his leg thrown over Chanyeol's, the warm skin of the redhead's belly against his own, Chanyeol's arm heavy over Baekhyun's ribs where he’s holding him close.

Baekhyun glances at the boy's face, watching Chanyeol shift unconsciously under the sheet. He has two freckles on his nose. Baekhyun has never noticed them before. They are the most beautiful freckles he has ever seen.

Eventually, when his thoughts become too complicated, he gets out of bed without waking Chanyeol.

 

* * *

 

Baekhyun’s therapy session is different today. Normally his mother comes alone, rattles on for an hour, contradicting her own statements, in a confusion of fury, bitterness and perhaps genuine anxiety and then Baekhyun goes back to his room and sleeps.

Today, though, both of his parents are there, sitting on other ends of the room, the space between them symbolic for the space in their hearts.

"You are not making any progress, Baekhyun," Mr. Kim says, his eyes on the clock. His face blank.

Baekhyun’s father looks out of the window, considering something for a minute, then glances at his expensive watch. In his polished shoes, with his stiff demeanour, he’s out of place. He has a kind of inbuilt authority, is one of those people who make one stand back slightly without quite understanding why.

"I believed things would be better by now. You reassured us that he would benefit greatly from getting a roommate,” Baekhyun’s mother complains.

Her hair bounces on her shoulders in long, carefully smoothed waves. Her expensive clothes are hanging from a trained, slim body and her face, immaculately made-up, is now fixed in a perpetual grimace of outrage.

"You promised the company would make him become his old self," she complains.

Mr. Kim digests this. Baekhyun looks at him, this unreadable man whose discomfort mirrors his own.

“We are doing our best here, Mrs. Byun. Recovery is always an unpredictable process," he eventually replies.

Mrs. Byun closes her eyes, locked in some internal struggle. “But you were so sure that-”

“You’ve got to understand that Baekhyun is a complicated case. His mind is still a secret to me. We can't help when he won't open up and his roommate is certainly not a magician," Mr. Kim says and looks at her intently, as if there were some extra meaning in what he has said.

There is a long pause. Baekhyun doesn’t know what his mother is thinking, but he can sense that this is an unfriendly silence. The utter lack of sound is like a deep, toothy mouth that he is lowering his head into. Evidently, she seems to realises she’s stuck with this arrangement and nods.

Why did he have to deal with this? Baekhyun thinks. His eyes have filled with tears of frustration and he fights the urge to dab them away. He doesn’t want his mother to see them.

Mr. Kim's gaze flickers from Mr. and Mrs. Byun back and forth, until he turns to Baekhyun. He looks the teenager up and down as he had when they had first met, as if Baekhyun’s wardrobe had failed some invisible test.

"I forgot to mention – I’ve received complaints from Park Chanyeol's parents," he says.

The words, and their implication, settle heavily in the silence.

"Complaints?" His mother blinks in surprise. "What complaints?" she asks. 

Mr. Kim looks at her as if everything should be self-explanatory.

"Mr. Park is not my client, but it's obvious Baekhyun must affect his recovery negatively and he either talked about this in therapy or let his parent's know that his current living situation is not to his liking," he replies. 

Mrs. Byun's face falls. "They've only been living together for two weeks. We can't just stop this because of some sensitive parents," she says and laughs, a sharp, unhappy sound.

Baekhyun’s father gives a deep sigh. "The boy doesn't like him, Ji-hye, it's not that hard to understand," he says. 

Something scalding washes through Baekhyun’s veins at those words. 

"Sung-min!", his mother exclaims.

A tear falls, unexpectedly, leaving a dark stain on Baekhyun's trouser leg, spreading outwards but no one notices. 

"What? You don’t like the idea that someone will tell him the truth?" his father asks, giving an annoying flick of his head. “This boy needs to grow up and get himself together.”

Mrs. Byun takes a long deep breath and pushes a sweaty strand of hair off her face. She’s obviously struggling to contain her frustration. Trying to smile again, ignoring her husband, she turns to Baekhyun. "I don’t want to argue with you, honey, but-"

His father snorts. "That surprises me. You pick fights whenever you can," he retorts. 

Mrs. Byun takes a breath. "That’s not fair," she exclaims. She glares at her husband, then turns to Mr. Kim. "I just want my son back. He has changed so much and turned into this empty shell of a person, this vacuum. Please, you need to help us."

Mr. Byun's phone beeps. He looks down. "I don't have time for this," he mutters under his breath. 

Mr. Kim’s face suggests he’s thinking the same thing. The man glances at Baekhyun; a hint of pity in his eyes.

“Maybe we can discuss this with the Park’s next week. I can arrange a meeting," he suggests. 

Mrs. Byun doesn’t seem to have heard. She faces her husband. "This is your son. Do you care about this family at all?"

Mr. Kim frowns and a sigh emanates from somewhere deep within him. "What are you talking about?" he asks. 

"I’m not stupid, Sung-min. I know," Mrs. Byun bites back. There’s a short silence in which his parents exchange a look. "But this is about Baekhyun. And I’m not going to put up with it again," she adds. 

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," his father scoffs, dismissive, cold.

Mrs. Byun faces him. She’s a beautiful woman, lean and agile in her late thirties, but now her face, flushed and cross, is that of a recalcitrant child.

"Who is it this time? A grateful client?" she asks. 

„I’m not listening to any more of this," his father says and stands up, turning to the door. What might be a sigh, or a flicker of resignation, passes through him before he places his hand on the doorknob.

“I’m going to work. Call me if you need anything," he exclaims and the door falls shut behind him.

Baekhyun’s mother and Mr. Kim exchange a look. His expression is intransigent. The conversation is apparently closed.

“I’ll let you know when I hear from Mrs. and Mr. Park," he says and gives a dismissive wave of his hand.

 

* * *

 

Baekhyun can taste his own flesh between his lips as he’s stumbling into his room. He is nothing. He now can see himself as Chanyeol does: a weird stranger, a minor character, uninvited, unwelcome. He can feel himself shrinking.

He thinks of the first time he met Chanyeol. What are you doing here? his expression had said, and now, Baekhyun feels the weight of that question settle over him. He doesn’t know the answer.

Inside, the only light comes from one outside, the curtains are drawn to shut it out. He can only make out the edges of the furniture, and Chanyeol's face.

"Hey, you're late," the traitor says, giving a small smile. "Is everything alright?" He almost looks worried.

Baekhyun stands very still. His breath rattles in and heaves out, there’s a flinch of the stomach, jump of the shoulders.

Why was he so dumb to believe that Chanyeol is different? he thinks, almost laughing. _Liar_. Chanyeol is lying, pretending to be someone he's not, feeling something he doesn't- just like everyone else. _Liar._ A good one, not like his father who gives everything away with a simple half-hearted smile or a soft shake of his head. No, Chanyeol is good.

Suddenly everything makes sense. Stupid him. Stupid. Stupid. _Stupid._

Chanyeol’s a pretender, a person with many faces - like they all are - and he has been stupid enough to trust him.

"Leave." The word emerges uncomfortably, as if his throat is swollen. It’s the first time in months for him to speak and it feels unfamiliar.

Chanyeol's eyes widen. "What?"

Baekhyun feels the familiar prickle of tears and wipes them away. There’s a weight on his chest that’s too heavy to carry. He wants to speak, to open his mouth and scream, but his voice emerges muffled and nonsensical. There’s blood in his mouth, warm and tasting of iron.

Chanyeol takes a step forward, his arm reaching out to him.

Baekhyun steps back as if he had been stung. Tension creeps into his neck and shoulders, his jaw clenched. He attempts to redirect the sob that has risen to his chest and fails.

_Liar. Liar. Liar._

"What happened?" Chanyeol's voice resonates with shock.

„All this time..." Baekhyun chokes on his own words. His palms are sweaty. All of Chanyeol’s jokes and his smiles and his help and even his cookies . . . and all the time the redhead just wanted him to be gone.

Chanyeol pales. “Baekhyun, are you angry with me?"

There are words coming out of Baekhyun’s mouth, but even though they sound right in his head, they seem to be making no sense once they pass his lips. They’re inaudible, blurred, distorted.

Baekhyun is getting furious. His vision blurs. “You think you know, do you? You think you have everything figured out!” he tries to scream, but only stuttering comes out.

„Listen—"

The urge to claw at the walls, to scream and to punch himself repeatedly becomes overwhelming.

"No, you listen. I fucking hate you!” Baekhyun screams in his head, biting so hard down on his upper lip that the skin starts to bleed. “What do you think you’re doing coming here and lying to my face? Let me take one of the screws rolling around in my skull and shove it through your dumbass diagnosis view you have. You want to pity me? You want to look down on me and see me as this crazy monster?”

Hot tears start to well up, and his lips are trembling. They purse as if to spit venom, but pursed they remain.

“Baekhyun, talk to me.” Chanyeol takes another step forward.

Utterly confused, tense, irritated with himself, Baekhyun can only scoff. Chest heaving, he turns and runs for the bathroom where he looks himself in. Inside, he sinks to the floor with a silent howl of despair and self-loathing.

He puts his head between his knees, but that position, however, seems only to increase the sound of his heartbeat. He remains quiet and listens to the overbearing weight of the silence outside until as Chanyeol's footsteps eventually move away, and finally disappear.

Now, his head starts to spin. Suddenly the ground threatens to rise to his eyes, without violence, without hurry. Before Baekhyun can understand, the bathroom floor has already sunken somewhere he can’t make out and he’s falling to the bottom of a chasm, far off like a rock thrown from a height into the sea.

His feet dissolve into air and the void is being crossed by vivid threads, by cold and anxious sounds like fast wind escaping through a crack. Then calm envelops his world. And then there is no world. And then, in a final reduction, there’s no him. Just void without strength and without colour.

 

* * *

 

Baekhyun wakes up in the morning and doesn’t want anything, doesn’t want to do anything and can’t do it anyway. He just lays there, listing to the blood rush through his head and it doesn’t make any sense, everything.

He looks at the wall. His hands. The sheets. And then he looks to his side and sees Chanyeol sleeping there in his bed.

Chanyeol.

And then Baekhyun realizes: He has to put an end to this.

He starts to avoid Chanyeol, even more than he normally does with others. He intentionally hides under the blanket whenever the other is around, locks himself up in the bathroom or stays extra long at therapy and takes walks outside with Mrs. Wan.

Something about the nurses dimly smile reminds himself unpleasantly of Chanyeol, his cheerful, commonplace chatter. He hates him, misses him, hates him, misses him, like flipping a coin or plucking petals off a flower. He decides to avoid Mrs. Wan as well.

At first, Chanyeol tries to talk to him, and the harder Baekhyun tries to avoid the latter, the more Chanyeol attempts to explain himself.

He just won’t let go. Every time Baekhyun spares him a single glance, Chanyeol gives him a half smile; a signal that everything’s okay, that he isn’t angry, that Baekhyun can approach him without being scared of rejection.

Baekhyun never does. His life has become dull again. His days are back to uneventful. Safe.

Eventually Chanyeol gives up on running behind him, stops preparing breakfast for him, stops saying 'Hey' and 'Good night, Baekhyun'.

At some point, he stops talking to him altogether.

Baekhyun shouldn't mind it. After all that's what he wanted to begin with. To be left alone. So why is he not satisfied with how things are? Up until now, he has lived for uneventfulness and has been able to find smaller satisfaction in the art of getting by.

Now every day is just another day of not talking to Chanyeol, of not touching Chanyeol, of not smelling Chanyeol and he resents that the hours seem boring now, emptier.

Dr. Kim isn't happy with his progress in therapy, prescribing him newer, better, stronger medication and every visit of his mother makes the psychologist even more upset. Today she’s particularly anxious.

She holds his hand tightly, even though he tries to refuse and makes a small attempt to scream but finds he has no energy left in his body to fight back.

She speaks in huddles with the doctor and the nurses about prognoses and medication and Baekhyun feels more and more like nothing makes sense anymore. He finds it hard to concentrate on what's being said and even more so he finds it hard to see how any of this is important.

Again, he notices himself wishing for the mundane possibility of listening to Chanyeol, for filling the next empty hour with the sound of his voice.

When he comes back into their room, the lights are already off and Chanyeol is asleep, face down on top of his blanket, still wearing the clothes he had been out with.

Baekhyun suspects it’s part of Chanyeol's therapy to go out and do some kind of work- and whatever it is, it must be tiring. Quietly, he takes off Chanyeol's shoes and pulls the covers over him. Then he climbs into his own bed.

 

* * *

 

Baekhyun starts to feel a bit better. He does.

One Thursday, around the time when Chanyeol is always at therapy, Baekhyun wakes up and the sun is up. Now there is such a radiant light outside that the flat feels dark. He feels muffled, sluggish, fairly hungover.

He’s on the couch in the living room, where he had fallen asleep the night before, still in his jeans and unbuttoned white shirt. Blinking his eyes, he looks through the small room, all in dimness, right through to the window at the end, and notices a transparent leaf.

Or is it a nail, a rose-leaf, a crack in the window?

Slowly, Baekhyun stands up, puts on shorts and, just for confidence, Chanyeol’s red scarf, the one that was hidden underneath Baekhyun’s pillow.

Comforted by the soft feel of it against his skin, Baekhyun walks towards the window and opens it wide. Leaning out, he can get a good view on more flowers, bushes and all sorts of things; almost like a magical secret garden.

Agitated with curiosity, he swings first his right, then his left leg over the windowsill and lands safely on the other side where he’s greeted by a riot of bloom. Now there, his breath stops in his chest.

The ground is filled with flowers; little fountains of colour in the meadow. Their heart-shaped leaves are marked at the tip with spots of gold dust. White and blue butterflies are crossing the meadow in zig-zag flights from bed to bed.

It’s a quiet, serene world, with the flowers so rich and radiant in the open field. A world without doctors or specialists or angry parents.

Leaning onto the wall, a few flowerpots thrive with clouds of small pink petals, its leaves stirred by the summer breeze. Baekhyun begins to walk slowly towards them, breathing in the sweet, subtle floral scent, then stops and sits down, his hands shaking.

He sinks onto a cushion that he recognizes from his room and stares in disbelief at the little oasis of calm and beauty. He imagines Chanyeol’s stolen hours here, watering the flowers, walking around the glowing blooms, and how the redhead must have had carried compost and pots here in the hours Baekhyun had been at therapy.

And at once the misery which he always tries to hide; the overwhelming dissatisfaction; the feeling of being inferior to other people, strikes him. The enmity relentless, cruel and with an intensity which he can’t beat off.

The way he has been treating Chanyeol these past weeks appears to him as sordid, repulsive; and so shabby, and himself ridiculous. Everything now seems unutterably silly, petty.

The garden with its flowers and tranquility starts to transform into something else in front Baekhyun’s eyes: Chanyeol’s true core being.

Suddenly Baekhyun can’t bear it outside any longer. He jumps up and storms inside, quickly closing the window behind him. Here is his home. Curtains drawn. The white walls with their aluminum curlicue molding.

He slowly walks over to Chanyeol’s bed. He doesn’t want to be noisy but can’t help it. He presses his face into the pillow, breathes in the smell of sweat; light peaches and milk; honey and strawberries; coffee and smoke; flowers and tears.

There’s the smoothness of Chanyeol’s skin, the softness of his hair, the warmth of his skin. A layer of hope and affection, secure and golden.

Baekhyun starts to cry.

 

* * *

 

He can see the red light from Chanyeol’s digital clock, which says 5:12, and there is a slight pre-morning color to the darkness. He is hungover but slowly becomes aware of his surroundings, blinking into the dimness, and listens, and there is the light metallic drone in his ear: a tinnitus.

The body in the other bed moves. Then, a heavy sigh.

I have done nothing wrong, Baekhyun thinks, but still feels like a bad person. It’s as if something is his fault, something that he cannot even name.

He throws back the covers and pads towards his table in his nightgown, barefoot. Chanyeol watches quietly while he searches through his stuff until he finds a pen and some paper.

Baekhyun writes something down. It’s not much. His handwriting is sloppy, childish cursive.

_“Why do you want me gone?"_

He puts it down on the bed and waits for Chanyeol to take it, trembling, shuddering like someone who has been out in the cold for a long time.

A few seconds pass until Chanyeol replies. He glances up at him a few times and then away.

“You see, Baekhyun. You’ve got to understand something.” He slowly sits up, adjusts his shirt. “I know how you are feeling. I know you have been alone for such a long time and that you must think that everyone wants to harm you or use you in some kind of way. And I get that.”

He lets out a heavy sigh, his eyebrows now drawn together. “I really do. But I want you to know that I’m not here to change you.”

He sits up fully and runs a hand through his red hair. “I mean, yes, I want you to get better but I like you this way- I mean, I accept you for who you are.”

He lets his head sink a little. It almost looks cute. “I don’t know about you but in my book we are friends. And friends can help each other. I want to do that for you, really. But- you have total freedom to be yourself, to feel or not to feel.”

Chanyeol scratches his head, clears his throat, and his gaze hooks into him.

“Whatever, you know? Whatever you are going through and whatever you are feeling at the moment is fine with me. You are not a burden. I like having you as my roommate.”

Baekhyun’s eyes start to burn. He turns his face away and stares into the pale darkness.

“Do you understand?” asks Chanyeol. Baekhyun thinks the boy did sound earnest just now. But why would he complain to his parents then? It all makes no sense.

A heavy sigh leaves Chanyeol’s chest. “I wish I would know what you are thinking of.”

I’m thinking of funerals and pearl earrings and the funny way that all hospitals smell, Baekhyun thinks and wipes away a tear. He grabs the paper, turns it and writes on it.

_"Did you complain about me?"_

This time, it takes Chanyeol longer to reply. He reads the paper several times before looking up.

“Complain?” he mumbles, his eyes resembling big, round marbles. “About you?”  
Baekhyun nods.

“No.” Chanyeol blinks a few times, shakes his head. “No, why would I?”

Baekhyun shrugs and looks briefly at Chanyeol’s eyes, which are sharply attentive, and then looks back down. He thinks to say The doctor said so, but what would be the point of that?

Maybe Chanyeol is telling the truth. Did his doctor lie to him? But why? He swallows down his anger and his eyes fishbowl with tears of frustration. He sits there, his face impassive, and draws his eyelids down slowly.

“Are you okay, Baekhyun?” Chanyeol asks and makes a flustered motion with his hand. “Is this why have been mad at me these past days?”

Baekhyun feels himself twitch, involuntarily. What can he say? This is part of his punishment, this humiliation, and all he can do is to frown stoically.

Chanyeol shifts a bit, uncertainly. “I promise you- Baekhyun, I promise you with my life.” He leans forward, places his hand on Baekhyun’s knee. “I did not complain about you to anyone.”

He clears his throat. “Since I’ve met you… Baekhyun, something has changed. Despite everything… the people who have left me, the ones who continue to be bitter and hurtful and the ones I can’t forgive, and despite my health problems, the new prescriptions, my tears, despite feeling like I don’t know what will happen next, I feel strangely happy.”

Say something, Baekhyun thinks, say anything, but all he manages is a sound in his throat, like phlegm.

Chanyeol lets his shoulders sink. “Don’t worry,” he mutters. “It’s okay,” and his eyes rest on him warm and damp and sad. He looks at him as if he has drifted in his mind to another conversation entirely.

With effort, Baekhyun heaves himself off from the bed he has been melting into, and walks back to his bed.

 

* * *

 

Why am I here? Baekhyun wonders as he peers out the window at the trees and the baby blue sky. He thinks of the place where he had grown up, the miles of flatland surrounding him, he thinks of their Villa, with its spike-tipped fence and locked doors.

And now- what is left of him? A prisoner of his own mind. Baekhyun puts his hand to the glass of the window and it’s cool, almost permeable.

The first time he had tried to kill himself, he had intuited that there was no escape. He had seen, with sudden clarity, that his life was a maze that he would run and run through and never find an exit, and he had thought, almost peacefully. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want his life.

And now? Is this really how he’s supposed to feel like? He’s not so sure anymore. Somehow his life; his world; he himself and his mind have started to feel very small. Spread out before him, he can see the long, impossible tangle of his life, the stretch of meaningless years that have led to this point and he rejects it.

He wonders what he could have done better. To be here, staring out of the window of his little room; could he have gone to college? What would he be now if he would’ve never become suicidal and depressed. If he hadn’t stopped talking. What would he have to account for at this very moment?

  
Perhaps nothing, perhaps something. Maybe he’d be learning, and feeling okay; more than he has felt lately, which is next to nothing.

Baekhyun sighs. And then, from the kitchen, a high-pitched voice speaks. “Why can’t you just be normal?”, a woman asks, her voice cold and uninflected. His mother’s voice, Baekhyun thinks.

It’s not the first time he has imagined hearing his mother’s voice, but it has never been so clear, so real. He actually gets up and looks towards the kitchen place, half expecting to see her.

But there’s nothing. Just the quiet living room, with its sofa facing away from the window, toward the TV. Chanyeol’s bed. His own. No one is there, though he feels as someone is watching, listening to his thoughts. He knows he has heard his mother’s voice.

He sits back down and listens to the wind outside that sends leaves and bits of paper into whirlwinds in the brick corners of the buildings. The gray half-light that could be dawn or dusk makes him sleepy. He closes his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Sheer terror sweeps through Baekhyun's small body. It had been raining all afternoon and by nightfall it has turned into a storm. Now he’s laying in bed, staring into the darkness, while listening to the thunderclaps that make his teeth rattle.

The windblown curtains are moving on the wall behind him, shadows reaching for him. It’s clear that Chanyeol isn’t asleep, no matter how hard Baekhyun tries to convince himself that he is.

He can sense, rather than see, that Chanyeol is looking at him. With all of his willpower Baekhyun forces himself to stay quiet, to not move an inch, to not even blink. He hates his own weakness, hates that he’s crying so hard that every breath seems to catch sharply in his throat before spilling out in a hushed, quivering exhalation, - all just because of a stupid storm.

He holds the sobs inside, forcing himself to be quiet, so Chanyeol can’t hear. He hopes that the room is dark enough for the other boy to not notice his discomfort.

The rain continues to beat down mercilessly, sending rivers down the panes and hammering down on the flat roof. To calm himself, Baekhyun begins to count the seconds between the thunderclaps and flashes of lighting.

Suddenly Chanyeol sits up, swings his long legs over the side of his bed, and stands. Baekhyun can hardly make out his silhouette in the blackened room. In the dark he can just see that Chanyeol's hair is all messed up which makes him feel oddly tender towards the boy.

And then, as Chanyeol moves closer, until he stands in front of his bed, Baekhyun can see his eyes. They look worried. A thunderclap sounds through the air. After a moment of staring, Chanyeol lowers his head. He swallows.

"Are you okay?"

A whimper escapes Baekhyun, like an injured puppy.

"Baekhyun," Chanyeol whispers. "You seem frightened. Let me help you."

The familiar anger rises, and Baekhyun sets his jaw against it. Liar. He tenses and shakes his head, trying to convey to Chanyeol his stupidity, his irrelevance. But instead of leaving him alone, Chanyeol looks at him with an expression of disbelief on his face, as if Baekhyun hadn’t understood.

„Look, I know you don't want to talk to me but I have to say something to you. It’s important to me that you understand."

Chanyeol sits down and rests his hand next to Baekhyun's. Close enough for him to feel the warmth of skin.

"I'm sorry for whatever I did," Chanyeol continues, his voice low, scratchy and almost overflowing with emotion. "But, Baekhyun, you need to believe me when I say, that I've never felt better in my life, than now as your roommate."

There’s a short silence between them, Baekhyun’s heart restlessly pounding in his chest. Chanyeol hesitates, then slowly raises his finger and presses it against Baekhyun's cold, pale hand. The strange, yet familiar feel of Chanyeol's skin on his knocks Baekhyun's breath from his chest.

"What is it, Baekhyun?" Chanyeol then asks softly and smiles, a long, slow smile, his eyes telling Baekhyun that it’s okay, he understands. "What's going on?"

His resistance crumbles. It’s like a huge weight is lifted off his shoulders. It’s now that he’s able to open his mouth and speak again. "I'm scared."

"Of me?" Chanyeol asks, and removes his hand, leaving Baekhyun's skin burnt with its imprint. His eyes are kind, his expression sorrowful.

Baekhyun isn't sure how to answer. He’s always scared- of what exactly he hasn’t been sure of for a long time now.

„I’m sorry," Chanyeol apologizes again and Baekhyun feels a sudden tenderness and reaches for his hand.

"I wish..." Chanyeol begins, his shoulders dropping. "I just wish I could make it better somehow- make you feel better. Just a little bit."

"No one can make it better." Baekhyun's voice breaks. Where he gets this sudden power to speak from; he doesn’t know. He just knows that he feels safe with Chanyeol. Protected.

"He ruined me." The moment the words leave his mouth he feels relief. And he feels scared. He feels vulnerable. He feels desire. He feels.. everything.

He screws his eyes shut, willing himself to keep it together, not to let Chanyeol hear how he's feeling in his voice. An arm sneaks its way to his waist and pulls him closer, wrapping around his fragile body.

Baekhyun leans against Chanyeol a little reluctantly, unbending in his arms. "I’m sorry," the redhead murmurs into his hair.

It’s not Chanyeol's fault, Baekhyun thinks. He has done nothing to him. It hadn't been his fingers, hadn't been his mouth, his teeth, his tongue. It hadn't been him.

"He was there. He was there. He- He," Baekhyun stutters against Chanyeol's chest, against his softness, his warmness, his all. "Everywhere."

A deep blush rushes into Baekhyun's cheeks like wildfire. If Chanyeol is surprised to feel tears fall on his shoulder, he doesn’t show it. Baekhyun is completely vulnerable now, has his armor off, trusting Chanyeol to take his shame and guard it.

“Shh, it’s okay," Chanyeol mumbles, his hot breath tingling sensitive skin.

No resistance is left in Baekhyun. He’s already crying, already feeling relieved and taken care of- no way he could push Chanyeol away and torture himself through this night alone.  
So, instead of pushing the boy away, he snuggles in close and noticing this, Chanyeol holds him a little tighter. He allows himself this for once. Allows himself some affection, some kindness.

Softly, Chanyeol places a kiss the top of his head, repeatedly telling him he’s safe, holding him like a child, softly rubbing his big hands over Baekhyun's shoulders down to his waist.  
His hands are just like any other hands, they shouldn’t feel like they are burning through his shirt, the warmth spreading everywhere, but they do.

Embraced like this, chests pressed close enough to one another that Baekhyun can feel Chanyeol’s heart beat against his own, he realizes, that he has never felt this secure and good since childhood.

This warmth, those gentle hands, holding him, not letting him go even for a second- it's what he has been yearning for his whole life. More than anything, he has wanted safe arms to hold him; someone to say "your special and safe with me".

Finally, in a low whisper, Chanyeol says, “I think I might be in love with you, Baekhyun.”

„I know you may not believe this,” Baekhyun imagines saying. “But I understand what you’re talking about.” Could he say, “I want to be by your side for the rest of my life? Could he say, “I see myself falling violently in love with you?”

Probably not. But he likes to think about it. With a calm smile on his face, he closes his eyes and falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

A few days later, on a early Monday morning, Baekhyun sits in a ring of brown office chairs, alongside Mr. Kim, the psychologist, a small, disciplined man, whose whole being exudes a kind of exhausted melancholy, and one empty chair.

A plump man in a polo shirt is talking about how he nearly lost his life due to a car crash. He’s wearing loafers with little tassels on them, and no socks.

Baekhyun stares at the ceiling. Group therapy was a desperate attempt to make him open up and talk- or show any kind of interest in recovery whatsoever. So far it has only bored him.

For him, group therapy is an awful lot of the time wasted on sitting among people he has nothing in common with, droning on for the few hours they have company. At least there is no one here he knows.

Those people are awfully uninteresting. But Mr. Kim acts as if they were a family; a team. All just sad victims of a disease, as they learn over and over. Of an illness, a mental illness, that they are battling together.

The plump man pauses, with a hitch in his voice. “I destroyed my life,” he says, and Baekhyun sighs again, looks at the clock. Half past two. What’s the point in re-examining this sadness all the time anyway? It’s like picking at a wound and refusing to let it heal. Grumpy and tired, he just wants to go to bed. His hip ache on the hard plastic chair.

„Sorry. Sorry, I’m late."

The door opens, letting in a blast of cold air, and the empty chair is taken by a red-haired boy, who folds his limbs into place as if they are always somehow too long for the space they’re in.

There’s a murmur of greeting. Baekhyun's heart picks up a few paces and he forces a poker face, deliberately not meeting the eye of any of the people seated around him.

Mr. Kim asks them to introduce themselves to their new member. Baekhyun listens vaguely and thinks, Mr. Kim is a hypocrite. He has his own, different kind of addiction. It seems to Baekhyun that the man likes watching other people get out of control. He enjoys playing on their insecurities.

"Do you want to introduce yourself to our new member, Baekhyun?" Mr. Kim turns to him expectantly, gaze steady, daring Baekhyun to say something.

The real world encroaches. Baekhyun is aware of the sound of high pitched laughter downstairs, somehow too loud, the feel of the cold limestone floor under his feet.

He swallows. Composes his face into a blank. Mr. Kim continues to look at him for several seconds longer than is comfortable for either of them until he finally breaks the eye contact and scribbles something onto his notebook.

"Alright," he says, turning his attention away from Baekhyun. Now, it’s Chanyeol's turn to introduce himself to the group.

Unlike Baekhyun, the boy doesn’t hesitate for a second. He speaks in a low, warm voice and when Baekhyun looks up, he’s able to catch a glimpse of that winning smile. It’s rare and dazzling, and Baekhyun wonders if Chanyeol knows how he’s vibrating. It must be obvious to everyone, his every breath betraying him.

"Your name and age won't do, Chanyeol," Mr. Kim says, seemingly unfazed by that smile,leaning back in his seat. "Tell us why you are here today."

Chanyeol scratches his head. "I.. haven't been doing well in therapy lately."

Mr. Kim nods, his expression softening for a moment. He’s pleased with that reply. Chanyeol takes a deep breath, his eyes finding Baekhyun and fixating on him.

"My father died. Four years ago. Everyone just told me that I had to let him go. Just get over it, Chanyeol. But I couldn't. I was too attached, and I couldn't deal with him not being around anymore. That was when I started cutting."

Baekhyun gripped his thighs, digging his fingernails into the skin to give him something to focus on. This information is new, exciting but also scary at the same time. It’s like Chanyeol is undressing himself for him.

"I tried to kill myself with pills, nobody knew about that, and it obviously didn't work and after the summer holidays I went back to school. I had a panic attack in the bathroom and scratched my legs, they send me home and my mother decided that it would be a good idea to send me to a therapist."

Mr. Kim nods, a cold smile on his thin lips. "And since therapy, what has changed for the better?"

For a moment, Chanyeol looks miserable. "I talk about.. things more, I suppose." There’s a short silence.

“Your mother’s death; your suicidal tendencies- all very tragic,” Mr. Kim says and pauses for a moment, in the way a teacher might pause to underline a word on the blackboard. “But that’s not the real reason for you being here today, isn’t it? Why don’t you share it with us?”

Baekhyun hears Chanyeol’s throat clear, deliberately, and he can feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

“I have this problem. I’ve been feeling this fear. Some say it’s anxiety. But this feeling of fear; dread- I feel it physically in my body. And when I feel that, the fearful part of me will attach it to some kind of completely illogical worry. Things that are literally impossible.”

Chanyeol bites his lips, blushes a little. “Logically I can tell myself that,” he says, and his voice is a little brittle.

“I can tell myself that it makes no sense. But I still obsess about it. I had nights when I was a teenager and all of the sudden I would be convinced that my father was dead and I couldn’t sleep the whole night. I was convinced that my father was dead and I was waiting for someone to come in and wake me up and tell me about it. And I was waiting for that knock on my door.”

Chanyeol blinks a few times, his lower lip quivering. Baekhyun too, is on the verge of tears. He keeps his mouth shut, though he can feel the heat in his face. He is not crying, but his chest feels tight and quivery.

“And that was based from nothing,” Chanyeol says. “That was just my fear; my worst fear. And I was picturing the pain, trying to anticipate this.”

Mr. Kim notes something down, then looks up. “Right,” he mutters, very calmly and clearly, that neutral, therapist’s tone that makes Baekhyun flinch. “So this anxiety you have been struggling with. Has that improved?”

Chanyeol shrugs. His mouth tightens, and something behind his eyes seems to flash. “I guess so.”

“You guess?” Mr. Kim chirps a brow. “I know you prefer not talking about this, but try.”

“There are parts of me that are carefree and then there are parts that check my lock ten times in a row, spend 5 minutes closing one jar and make me move away from strangers in the subway because I’m convinced they’re going to stab me," Chanyeol says.

“This is not all me but it’s a part of me. And it’s a part I’m trying to hide because I don’t like it. I hate how my life back home is full of rituals, how I spent three minutes turning off the bathroom tab or closing my fridge. How I brace myself for my taxi driver to shoot me in the head."

“I hate talking about this because to me this feels so stupid. This isn’t a real problem. I do this to myself. Just close the fridge once, you idiot. It’s all so meaningless. So stupid. I don’t want to talk about this because I feel like I’m doing this to myself.”

“What reason do you have to blame yourself like this?” Mr. Kim asks. “Why would you do that to yourself on purpose?”

“I don’t know.” Chanyeol seems briefly taken aback by this. Mr. Kim says nothing, just looks, very seriously, into Chanyeol’s face.

“But do you enjoy doing those things?”

“No,” Chanyeol says, defensively. “I don’t like opening and closing the mailbox fifteen times in a row while the people on the street are looking at me, wondering what I’m doing. I hate all those rituals I feel compelled to do.”

“Do you spot the flaw in your logic? Why would you do those things that you absolutely hate? If you could stop, wouldn’t you?”

Chanyeol shrugs. “I guess.”

Mr. Kim nods encouragingly. His voice sounds oddly hollow. "Have you talked to your mother about your feelings?"

"No.“

Mr. Kim gives another practiced sympathetic nod. „How does that make you feel?" he then asks, speaking in a grave, technical tone of voice.

"A bit weird. I mean, I miss my father, but I do think it’s probably good that she’s moving on.“

Mr. Kim smiles and turns towards a woman in her mid-30s. "Sarah, do you want to say something to that? Since you lost your father you might emphasize with Chanyeol's story."

Sarah nods and starts to explain, how her father died and how she struggled to go to school and live her life after that.

What’s all that got to do with me? thought Baekhyun. Directly across him, he could see the individual veins on Chanyeol's hands. He focuses on them instead of Sarah’s voice, only dimly aware of the conversation around him.

He doesn’t care about anything – he’s just relieved to have Chanyeol close to him. He refuses to think about anything other than his presence. He keeps his eyes locked onto Chanyeol's face, his wide, confident grin, his eyes, which seem to know everything. Eventually his tense shoulders relax, his breathing slows, and he feels the built up anger vanish.

Mr. Kim asks a lot of questions, wants to know of details of what had happened. Opening up like this to the other patients supposedly greatly contributes to recovery. Baekhyun disagrees, silently.

Mr. Kim isn’t really concerned for our health, he thinks. The main motivator here is money. Baekhyun has realized this soon, has paid attention to each gesture, each movement. Since he was clever, it has been easy find out that behind Mr. Kim's professional appearance and behavior, behind the forced concerned manner, the psychologist finds no pleasure in what he’s doing. This is a job like any other for him. His main goal is the paycheck at the end of the week, not genuine concern or empathy.

The fifty minutes pass very slowly. Coldly, solidly, rigidly. After the therapy session Chanyeol waits for him at the door, and it makes Baekhyun feel oddly safe. As if the boy wants to demonstrate that they are together somehow- a team; that no one, not even Mr. Kim, can make Chanyeol turn against him.

„You okay?" Chanyeol asks, when they are in the hallway. Baekhyun shakes his head mutely.

Chanyeol's hand reaches behind his back, and Baekhyun leans into the touch, somehow trying to convey to Chanyeol his thanks. He did save him in there, stopped him from making a fool of himself. Even though he wasn't sure if Chanyeol had noticed his panic attack, Baekhyun still feels grateful for Chanyeol's mere existence.

Feeling giddy, Baekhyun rests against him for support.

* * *

 

_10 months later_

 

Baekhyun wakes and it’s raining. He sees the droplets of water moving horizontally across the windshield, pulled unsteadily by the velocity, and he thinks of small fish moving through an aquarium tank, the aquarium that used to be in his mother’s house, with the mollies, and angelfish, and swordtails, and silver dollars. They have been driving for a long time, he thinks.

He is stretched out in the backseat of Chanyeol’s car, covered by a blanket. It is okay not to wear a seat belt, Chanyeol had told him. He closes his eyes, and then opens them.

“Are we there yet?” he asks and can see Chanyeol’s eyes in the rearview mirror, glancing back at him.

Outside, landscapes pass but don’t really leave an impression on him, sliding through his eyes and out the back of his head—the painted lines, the signs with their shining lettering.

„I don’t think so,” Chanyeol replies.

Baekhyun rolls his shoulders, yawns. “How will the beach be like?” he thinks as he has never been close to open water before in his life, and watches for a moment how Chanyeol gazes out the windshield at the street, his face framed against the blur of passing cars.

* * *

 

Baekhyun loves their new place. It’s comfortable and exciting, a world he connects vaguely in his mind with surfers and hippies. He loves the things they own: Chanyeol’s drawings of dogs and landscapes and Baekhyun, the stacks of record albums and tapes, the beaded door that leads to the kitchen, the small keyboard, a possession Baekhyun admires, along with a stereo system and a refrigerator full of pictures showing themselves smiling wide and happily.

They always have the newest sweets and snacks that Baekhyun sees advertised on TV, and he’s welcome to eat as much as he liked. And the living room, he thinks, is breathtakingly luxurious, with its thick carpet and the beanbag chairs and also the big sofa with giant pillow cushions.

One lazy evening, they are both spread out on the sofa, watching the latest episode of Chanyeol’s favourite anime, when a thought rises to Baekhyun’s mind.

“Can I ask you a question?” he asks and Chanyeol just shrugs.

“Why this place?” he says.

“Huh,” Chanyeol says: a short laugh. “You don’t like it here?”

“That’s not it,” Baekhyun says. “I was just wondering… why did you choose to live here out of all the places.”

Chanyeol regards him steadily for a moment, his expression hooded. Then he smiles. “I love it here. The beach, the sea… It has something magical, don’t you think so?”

„I guess,” Baekhyun mumbles, “I’ve never really thought about it before.” And he shrugs, shifting uncertainly.

Chanyeol leans a bit closer to him and Baekhyun’s skin prickles as their arms brush lightly against each other, he can see the pale hairs just above Chanyeol’s wrist, the rosy smell of lotion and moist, soft pressure of skin brushing against skin, the way the red hair grazes his ears.

“This place here, it’s a place of emotion. It’s a place of joy. It’s a place of energy,” Chanyeol says and lets the pad of his forefinger touch the back of Baekhyun’s hand, briefly, smiling at him. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe I’m just weird. I’m, like, probably sort of crazy or something. But . . . I really think this is a special place made just for us.“

Baekhyun doesn’t know what to say to this and so he is silent. He likes the thought of having their own little sphere; this apartment; the sea; the sky; all just for themselves. He loves the pure and bracing air, and waking up to the sound of the waves. “I’d like to think that, too,” he eventually replies.

That makes Chanyeol smile. “Baek,” he says, “I can feel the energy of this place. I feel it in the water, in the wind. This place is freedom.” He turns, looks outside at the baby-blue sky.

“And I feel lost,” he mutters. “Lost in the moment. You know how priceless that is? And how rare? To be in the current moment, to not be thinking about the past or worrying of the future or thinking about something that could be happening?” He shakes his head, childlike joy radiating from him. “It’s so precious. Even hoping for good things to happen or having positive projections of things you want to come or wishing or dreaming. It’s so special.”

Chanyeol takes a deep breath. He looks so serious, it makes Baekhyun’s heart ache. And he knows, on some deeper level, that living here means the same to Chanyeol as to him. It’s a wonderful realistion. They are connected through recovery, both experiencing how it feels to be able to breathe lightly.

“You know, Baek,” Chanyeol says, “There’s something I have always believed in. I believe that thoughts are real. They have energy. They have physical weight. We are all creating our own reality. And the problem is that we get caught up in what’s unreal. It’s so rare to just be there. Just in this moment. Everything else our minds are so obsessed with; all the fear, the pain. It’s nothing. The realest thing is this moment, Baekhyun. It’s the moment you’re in right now.”

And then, without warning, Chanyeol kisses him. He tilts his head and presses his lips against his. Baekhyun feels his tongue move softly, a little flick along the line of his mouth, and he jerks with surprise. Chanyeol’s hands hold his cheeks, and his lips move against his for a moment before he releases him.

 

* * *

 

After a few weeks of living with Chanyeol, Baekhyun tries to call his parents and when his mother finally picks up the phone, in the late afternoon, it’s clear that things have changed. He has only started to talk about living at the beach and his decision to leave his old life behind when she cuts him off.

“Listen, Baekhyun,” she says, in a bright, quick voice. “This is nothing to worry about. I just got a report from Mr. Kim, and you’re doing great. I just want you to be happy and if this is what you choose, then I’m fine with it..”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun mumbles, and he can feel all of the things that he’d imagined telling his mother shriveling up. “Yeah, I understand. I mean-”

But his mother is already moving on. “It’s really good talking to you, Honey” she says. “But I really have to get going. I’m sorry. It’s really been hectic around here lately.”

“Ah,” Baekhyun replies. “Well then.”

Pity. His mother pites him and his life. And what had he been expecting, after all? Some kind of apology? A reconciliation? No, Baekhyun thinks, and it occurs to him that all his mother wants to believe is that his unhappy life isn’t her fault— some kind of proof that she’s unlucky and her son doomed since birth, which isn’t what Baekhyun can give her.

He’s someone who’d almost lost himself, the person he loves most in the world, but he has gotten another chance. The most amazing thing in the world. Don’t worry about me, he wants to tell his mother. He has found himself again, has found a way to trust himself, to find peace within himself. The best thing that could ever happen to him has already happened.

 

* * *

 

After having spent so much of his life wishing to be a different person, so many hours dreaming of a sort of transformation, of a life far away from everything, Baekhyun finally learns to relax and let go. It’s as if he has never really been living before, as if he know, with eighteen, learns to discover what it means to be alive.

Chanyeol found a job as waiter down the road. They live in a shabby apartment close to the beach, and wake up every morning to the sound of the waves. It’s not a lot. But it’s something. It’s dripping peach-colored skies. It’s the soft careness of the sun rays, the pleasant embraces of warm winds. It’s building sand castles next to gently crashing waves.

It’s the dusk and light raining and everything smelling of sea salt. It’s the shade when the rain hits the ocean and Baekhyun’s skin aches with the cold air but he still feels warm. It’s the dark clouds on the sky and the fairy gloss. It’s tightly holding hands and running down the pier. It’s laughing and dipping hands and feet into water.

It’s the wind dancing in Chanyeol’s hair. It’s watching the sun merge with the sea while holding his hand. It’s the soft glow of the salty moon. It’s his plump lips and Baekhyun’s thumb resting there, tender. It’s the sweetness of Chanyeol’s tongue, his neck, exposed, bent forward slightly, as if in supplication.

It’s Chanyeol’s small breaths, his moans, the way he blushes and covers his burning face with his shaking hands. It’s his sigh when Baekhyun grabs his right nipple in one hand and takes the left nipple in his mouth. It’s him begging for more whenever Baekhyun lets his hands explore his body, from waist to stomach, hips and legs.

It’s how Chanyeol never knows where to put his hands and limbs and clutches onto him, wanting to please, lost in the sensations. It’s Chanyeol kissing him with so much passion that Baekhyun forgets to breathe.

It’s them starting to laugh whenever they make out and it’s feeling Chanyeol’s voice vibrating through him. It’s Chanyeol’s smile whenever they kiss. And it’s the redhead putting his arms around Baekhyun’s waist, kissing away the tears that run down his cheeks, murmuring words of love.

It’s all this and so much more that fills up the gaps in Baekhyun’s heart with warmth, his lungs with sweetness and his brain with love.

He’s getting better. Light and clear and pink. He’s getting better. Every day he notices a piece of the world, something beautiful or funny or strange, that he can think about. He’s content most of the time.

Each day Baekhyun spends with Chanyeol, it feels as if he finds out a little bit more of himself, from his true core. Each afternoon that they sit down to talk, it feels like he stops acting out a persona and gets to know himself again.

As they lay in the bed of their tiny apartment close to the beach, listening to classical music, he confines in Chanyeol. He tells him about his parents and all the fights, about his father’s infidelity.

He tells Chanyeol about the odd, elusive connections he can feel at the edge of his thoughts—his cold hearted mother, and his father and his friends from before, these people he’d lost, pacing together in a wheel in his mind.

And at night, when he struggles with falling asleep, Chanyeol leans over him, humming a calming melody. He sings to him, a song from one of his records, slow, and somewhat tranquil:

 

 _Here you are, I never want to be without you,_  
_and when I touch you in each of the places we meet,_  
_in all of the lives we are, I never want to be without you._  
_And here I sing, you never have to be perfect,_  
_I just want you to be here with me._

 

The damp pads of Chanyeol’s fingertips pass along his face, and when he smiles and tries to lean into the touch, Chanyeol smiles and places a kiss on his temple, nose and finally, on his forehead.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for so long.. and it feels weird to finally publish it. A lot of my own experiences with recovery and mental health issues have gone into this.. It's my first work in which I wanted to create something more serious, something that carries emotional value. I hope it's not too dark or depressing.. and I hope y'all had fun reading this anyway and enjoyed Chanbaek's journey. 
> 
> Comments are always appreciated. <3


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